Lil’ Patch Of Heaven Gives Back

A helpful and hopeful business decided to give back to the Chestermere community in a big way over the past Spring Fair weekend.
Lil’ Patch Of Heaven is a horse ranch that often brings their animals to the Chestermere Spring Fair to offer horse rides to kids.
This past year, at the Fair on May 4, they went a little extra mile when it came to what they had to offer to this community.
For two dollars, a child could get a ride on the back of one of the four horses Brian and his wife, Cindy Irving brought with them to the fair.
Those two dollars didn’t go to transportation to the fair, or horse food, or even gas.
It went to the Chestermere Food Bank.
In a selfless act of just plain old good citizenship, the Irving’s raised over $350.00 for the Chestermere food bank this year, a sum that almost certainly helped out a lot of people when they needed it the most.
“Being able to feed yourself and your family is so vital.” Brian Irving said over email.
He and the rest of Lil’ Patch Of Heaven wanted nothing more than to help out a family or families in need by bringing a smile to a child’s face while they got to ride a horse for a few minutes.
Lil’ Patch Of Heaven is also part of the Equine Assisted Learning program.
“EAL has shown to be very effective in the treatment of depression, addictions, anger management and victimization,”
“It also has proved to be effective in corporate settings for team building, identifying communication issues, as well as understanding team dynamics.” Brian Irving said on the program.
The four horses, Chief, Whiskey, Popcorn and Mevin, as well as JJ the miniature donkey, who all came out to the Chestermere Spring Fair are all part of the EAL program at Lil’ Patch Of Heaven.
“We also teach equine first aid courses,” Mr. Irving added.
Caring for the horses, and being able to treat minor inflictions on them is essential to being able to have multiple large animals at a time.
Unhappy horses make for unhappy Equine Assisted Learning programs, which would defeat the whole purpose of the program itself.
“We are also introducing week end summer horse camps this year,” said Mr. Irving.
Horse summer camps for just the weekend are a great opportunity for kids and adults alike to get to spend more time with animals they might not normally get to be around, while learning to ride and care for them at the same time.
All-in-all, the Lil’ Patch Of Heaven horse ranch is a great organization. They help give back to the community, most recently with their over $350.00 donation to the Chestermere Food Bank, and with their EAL therapy programs.
Chestermere as a community can only hope Brian and Cindy Irving, and their horses, stick around for many Spring Fairs to come, as their donations are greatly appreciated, and their horses are a lot of fun to be around.